THE U.S. DELEGATION IS TAKING THE OFFENSIVE in Johannesburg:

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) – The United States launched a diplomatic counterattack at the world summit Thursday, declaring itself to be the world’s leader in sustainable development and challenging the need for timetables to tackle poverty and environmental damage.

In a forceful – nearly angry – presentation, a dozen Bush administration officials laid out a series of partnerships with industry and foundations in what they described as a “new approach” to address some of the world’s most pressing problems: energy, clean water, sanitation, hunger, among others.

Prediction: no approach that doesn’t produce a lot of jobs for internationalista bureaucrats and NGO-crats will get good reviews.